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SIMPLE THINGS

One of the deeper powers of the Japanese people is their undying love of simple things. They come from a long and concentrated past, uncolonized, and have willingly adopted all the diversions and distractions that the modern world has to offer, from trains, cars and planes to movies, tv, fast food, computers - it's a long list - and they enjoy and use it all, even improve on much of it, but at the core they're still much the way they were before all that came along.

I saw a good example of this the other morning when Echo and I joined the crowds going up the cherry blossom-lined mountain road not far from our house, to the cherry-inundated ski ropeway area where locals throng during cherry season to picnic and view the Lake, visit the stalls at the local product hall, buy some local foods and wines, pickles, sake, senbei, shochu, sit around on the red cloth-covered platforms and enjoy the events, some singers, some taiko drummers and other performances out in the open air.

All are just getting into enjoying their picnic bento when the MC announces that the mochi-making will now begin and whhhooooosssshhh: instantly all the platforms are empty and there is a steadily growing crowd of folks of every age gathered around the mochi-making place to watch an event that everybody there has seen dozens, hundreds, thousands of times (Echo is up there too watching, but for me a few dozen viewings is pretty much enough): someone plops a hefty hunk of hot glutinous rice into a big wooden or stone mortar and someone else pounds it with a big wooden hammer as the first someone, after each hammerstrike, with wet hands turns the blob of increasingly sticky rice, the crowd yelling at each turning of the gooey glob before each descent of the hammer Yoisho -- Yoisho -- even the tiny kids join in, yelling at the top of their lungs; they never tire of this, even the teenagers take part, then when at last the mochi is done, at the MC's announcement that they will now hand out the finished product, each person to receive two small portions of mochi, they all right away get in a line that snakes down the mountain and wait for up to 20 minutes to get their mochi, no problem, this is all fun, all joy, this timeless tradition, this symbol of strength and unity from way before any of the lives here, it means much more than the little it appears to be, all somehow deeply and importantly spiritual, but above all, as simple as you can get.

The Japanese love this kind of thing and always will; the grandmas love it, the new mothers love it, the farmers love it, the city folks love it, the young punks love it, the little kids love it, the babies love it, even the cynics love it, it resonates in all their hearts, this simple kind of thing, like the bon-odori dancing and the omikoshi carrying, the many societal embraces that the members take deep comfort in, because in all simple things, beyond the deceptive mask there are profound reaches, umbilicals of time and existence.

To those who by custom can appreciate that much dimension, it's all so simple, really...

I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE

While working on words upstairs, I heard an unusually loud call from Crow, the one who loves pineapple and hangs close around here a lot、 in hopes of more. He was so loud in fact that I thought he must be close above me on the roof; then not long after I heard a hard rapping on the thick glass of one of the big living room doors downstairs (visitors from up mountain who come by the inner road sometimes knock there).

I got up, went over to the loft railing and looked down to see who it was, and there was Crow, pecking at the glass! BOOM! BOOM! He pecked a few more times and, rumblecawing the while like a mafia wingman, tilted his head to look through the window and examine the inside of the house (he knew there was an inside!) as though to see if anyone was there, then he crowed again. To me, peering down from upstairs, the tone of it sounded a lot like "I know you're in there, where's my pineapple? I saw it in the kitchen window! I know you're in there... Fork the fruit over if you know what's good for you! I know where you live!" etc.

Then he hopped up onto the table by the door to get a higher look inside - I don't think he spotted me up there peeking over the railing - then one of his goodfellas called and he flew off, rumblecawing intimations of his return.

I guess I better peel that pineapple if I know what's good for me.

THE LIGHT

I had to slow down on the curve, which was why I noticed the monkey.

It was that curve behind the school, where the road turns sharply to the left on the way down to the station. As I slowed I observed a youngish monkey sitting alone atop the red roof of the school. The solo part was unusual, especially for a youngster, but even stranger was the way the monkey was sitting, as though in complete dejection; didn't even lift his head to look at the human passing by not so far away on a motorcycle. His pose was part Rodin thinker and part the guy sitting there head down, with right leg extended and left arm flung straight out across his left knee in a kind of exhausted despair.

In the simian part of myself, I took a good measure of delight in this. Seeing monkeys in unpleasant situations is a form of pleasure for a mountain gardener. But then my higher faculties jumped in with their righteous batons and moral direction signs and I felt the stirrings of sympathy, because perhaps I was beholding an early version of we humans ourselves, as the proto-human first raised his or her head to look upon at the world around and thought... Hey, I just had a weird experience in my head! What the hell was that? as the first iota of memory found its place, held on, stayed there, and knowledge was born in us: lo, we had perspective - time perspective, emotional perspective - there were tangents and pathways, there were decisions... and so the path led on, to roads, schools, motorcycles...

But this monkey hadn't reached that point yet, he was an early branch of us sitting up there alone in simian despair, perhaps hungry in a way he could not fathom; perhaps he had looked in the school windows yesterday and seen all those furless kids eagerly poring over books and symbols, learning about everything around them, but it wasn't even Greek to him; he thought what are they doing in there, why can't I do that and why would I want to-- then perhaps came the realization, in some proto-human way, that he could not get in: he did not have whatever qualifications were.

Monkeys can raise their eyes and behold the land and its character all around them, but it has no meaning, for they know nothing of topography, have no inkling of geography, history, biology, mathematics, all the human labels for humanly organized categories of monkey-useless things (no doubt an instantly sapient monkey would come up with completely different categories that better suit the simian mindset). The world that monkeys see is just as it is, without heuristic depth or duration, for they cannot build upon memories the way we do (to whatever end), not only because they don't desire to, but mainly because they don't need to. Which was our own status at one time, until it changed for reasons that can only be approached mythologically.

Sitting up there alone the young monkey looked as though he had just beheld for a brief moment what we call The Light, and then had lost it, could not hold onto it, as may have been - indeed, likely was - the case back at our own beginning, so as I passed on by I could not but commiserate, a little bit.

Hang in there, buddy; no matter what happens, just stay away from my onions.

MUSHROOM PASSION

Shiitake can be surprisingly erratic when it comes to the eroticism that is their destiny, they'll be tiny for a few dry days, then after an overnight rain they're umbrellas for increasingly larger elves.

All last night there was a heavy rain that is still ongoing, and a glance out the window this morning showed me an elf umbrella expo out there on the stacks of logs and on the ones laid out under the trees by the inner road. With this ongoing downpour I didn't want them to overdose the way they do sometimes, get all quick big and watery, so I donned the old trusty raincoat and went out there with a basket and harvested in the pouring rain.

Not surprisingly, shiitake are slippery when wet, can skitter all over the place if you don't have a grip, plus the escapees always try to hide, stubborn and sly as any natural thing. They'd much rather stay right where they are and pigout on the rain of course, this being their one big shot at fulfillment2Zmax; they do not want to go into some old final basket without having experienced their ecstatic role in the vast and complex process that is mushroom eroticism, with which emotions I sympathize, believe me, I went to Catholic schools, but there are other priorities here, such as imminent human mealtime, human in this specific case being the guy who inoculated these logs years ago, and to whom in his world they therefore "belong."

Perspectives are particularly limited just before lunch, but I do leave some of the mushrooms in place to fruit; whose heart is so cold that it cannot honor passion so manifest?

Sounds like deer

eating my new radish leaves -

early morning rain

PASTA CON FUNGHI E AGLIO PRIMAVERA NELLA MODA BOB

Yeah, that's sort of the way it happened, I was the last one in on it. It started when I went out to dump some wood ash on the compost pile and I noticed the rampant billboard of new shiitake that had emerged since the weekend.

Whenever that happens out there under the spell of the garden I start thinking of plates full of shiitake in various arrangements but I'm a lover of cuisinal simplicity and it's not salad season so as my mind ground along it came up with a pleasing image, in this case spinning one out of the potato urgency now swelling the tool shed (see previous post), that fact prompting my mental mill to recall the baby garlic that was still standing in the way of complete tuberization, with a deep pause in there to ponder the impressive similarity of the mind's workings to those of Rube Goldberg...

Last year I had finished planting garlic and had the littler cloves left over, regarding which those in the know say Just eat them, but being a contrarian I wanted to learn what would happen if I planted them, in comparison to the larger cloves, so I planted the wee ones in a square meter or so left over from the onions. By the time Spring had rolled around they had come up much smaller than their bigger fellows, nor would they ever catch up and get as big-- no surprise there, upon reflection.

But instead of eating them back in the Autumn as little cloves, I'm eating them now as spritely spring garlic-- or better yet, aglio primavera (there's something Italian about Spring produce) and with a dual purpose (so I can plant those potatoes!). You see how everything ties together here in the mindgarden as in the universe at large, where the interconnections are often less obvious, but don't let that fool you.

So as my mind cuisined along I began to envision sliced aglio primavera sauteing lightly in olio d'oliva awaiting handfuls of thinly sliced, freshly harvested funghi shiitake, tutti nella moda Bob. Topped of course with grated pecorino romano, and an insalata di spinaci on the side, all the better to become yours truly.

VEGETABLE TRAFFIC

OK, OK, so I overdid it on the tubers. That can happen at the farm store when you stand in front of 10 different potato varieties to choose from quick before they're all sold out, but now my garden is full of stuff growing anew or just finishing up while I tap my foot beside the rows because I still have three bags of planting potatoes sprouting in the tool shed.

Potatoes never heard of wristwatches, understandably, but they always know what time it is; you can't fool them even in the dark, they're right at home in there tapping their own little sprouty feet while I'm out here telling my spinach and other greens to get cracking, urging my onions on toward bulbhood, what do they think this is, a public park, get them to hurry up and bolt or bulb so I can pull them up for lunch or dinner or storage and have new room for potatoes, but impatience has no place in gardeners, only in vegetables, and the potatoes are impatient.

They're on a fixed schedule after all, it's built in, they're on their hardwired way down the long and endless potato road, they have their destination all planned out and can't stop for my little traffic problems, they're not gonna restrain themselves for my convenience, they have their job to do and that's all that matters to a potato; they're gonna do it with or without me. There's nothing more dedicated than a tuber whose time has come.

So it's too angsty now, opening the tool shed door and seeing those eager wide-eyed sprouts ready to go, just pushing their pale way out through the net bags, purpling as they reach for the garden, so I don't open the tool shed much anymore I can't bear it, at night I toss and turn and it's not just potatoes you know, its beans, cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, it's a long alphabet and it doesn't end with zucchini.

I've got a vegetable traffic jam going here, and I'm not used to being a vegetable cop. Maybe I need a uniform...

KEEPING GODS HAPPY

At last the sunny cool spring day came when I could harvest my oldest compost, that has been nurturing for a good three years now, so I went out there and set to raking the two long piles into one center pile, a manageable form for bit-by-bit shoveling ad hoc onto my garden.

I was pumped, man: that rich black loamy goodness born of leaves and cuttings, kitchen leavings and wood ash topped off with occasional additions of nature's helpful organisms like a big organic hot fudge sundae would in time elegantly transform the sunrainair and my soil into rotundo potatoes and onions with silly grins, dancing lettuce, rosy-cheeked radishes, a maharajah's weight in ruby tomatoes, golden squashes galore and zucchini choruses fuggeddaboddit, so you can imagine the dimensions of my chagrin when I raked over the first side mound into the center and about a dozen huge kabutomushi larvae tumbled senselessly into the sudden light like big helpless baby aliens and just lay there silently going Huh? Wha? Huh?, slowly grabbing with their suddenly useless little arms at mere air of no purchase.

This I was not expecting. Turns out that the kabuto dynasty had really taken to that patch of compost, made a family tradition out of it even though this year there were no more used-up shiitake logs, which they had flipped for a couple years ago, so there I was just a minute ago all ready to go and now leaning ponderously on my rake realizing that there were probably a couple hundred kabutomushi gonnabes hanging out there in my compost, and no other place to put them even if I wanted to bother winkling them all out and and putting them elsewhere, so I couldn't help thinking along the lines of hey gods aren't we supposed to be sort of working hand in hand here or what, you keep throwing these off-wall problems at me how'm I gonna get this garden in shape, ok, ok, ok, I will...

So I raked it all, the whole thing, into a pile like a huge kabutomushi cake and according to the new rules I have to wait until all the larvae grow up and leave home to pursue their individual beetle careers, which maybe start in June sometime I hope yer happy, gods.

SOUL OF THE STATION

Waiting to go home yesterday at the new train station in the Big City , saw on the opposite brand-new platform a wide-eyed little girl coming up on the escalator, she was all new too, about 4 years old, new to trains and stations, especially escalators, not been walking for all that long, legs still new, eyes still new, a fresh world it was everywhere, she soaking it up, not really walking but anyway holding on to her grandpa's hand there in the crowding rush of tall folks flowing around her, her hair tied in two bunches, one sprouting from each side of her head, she wearing a pink jacket covered in kittens, bouncing around every way she could because walking at just a plain old regular grandpa pace was simply not enough for all she contained, practically shimmering she was with the energy and excitement of having this vast place in her mind, her head turning, eyes looking everywhere at all this newness, skipping, bouncing, swaying, jumping, everything she could manage while holding a big hand and being good at the same time amid all the colors, lights and sounds, huge announcements were there, and thousands of folks hurrying or standing in lines waiting for trains that rumbled in her feet, other people buying food or papers or drinks from people and machines.

There she bounce-marched along at the heart of all that serious train-waiting business, done in mostly dark blues and browns, grays and blacks, with eyes to books and magazines, racing sheets and games, phones and pods of all kinds but she, oh, she was bright and all eyes, mostly in any direction but forward, though sometimes there too, grandpa was her guide so she was free to look and see, not to walk along but to skip along, hair bouncing, way more fun, taking everything into the whole new life of herself.

As far as I could see, she was the soul of that whole rush-hour station, and as I watched her brighten her way through the shadowy throng I couldn't help think how much hope there is after all, so long as there are children, who do for us former children what we no longer do for ourselves, and thus carry on the grand endeavor so many grownups seem to have left behind or even given up on, bearing the true soul from all the way in the past all the way into the future: skipping, usually, among us busy, preoccupied shadows who should remember to skip now and then as well along our ways, however we can, for that is how we once were and still are, at the heart of ourselves-- that is the deep reality of it, as children are here to remind us, even as we wait for our train.

THE BIG RAINBOW

We enjoy full and long-term rainbows all the time out here in the countryside, as compared to the barely distinguishable fragments of arc we used to glimpse between buildings in the city sometimes, already kind of faded and archaeological, like a suddenly exposed artifact that disintegrates on contact with modern urban air, such as that is, but these gateways of light we see arcing from mountains to Lake are real rainbows, wide ones, bright ones, deep and full ones all the way from here to there, in the true meaning of those terms as used in the countryside.

This rainbow I'm looking at now reaches from down on the lakeshore all the way to Hiei Mountain, pots of gold everywhere, from violet to orange with all the colors in between, and while gazing right at the rainbow you can't help but ponder the fact that you can't find its edges - though the rainbow is distinct, isn't it - yet it isn't, is it - and none of the individual colors themselves have an edge, though they too are each distinct but not, which leads you to realize right on the spot, fully rainbow-minded by now, that this narrow band of colors we are gifted to perceive is but a short segment of the Big Rainbow; that sound waves and gamma rays are vibrations on the same continuum, as are all other 'waves,' including us (and why should we in our existence see only this little portion, could we bear to see it all?), that in a way we're seeing with our ears when we hear sound waves, hearing with our eyes when we see light waves, and hearing/seeing with our skin when we feel heat waves, all part of the one continuum we chop up into different senses because that's the way we self ourselves and word the world; and in the very same dark-age way that we used to think the world was flat and still think of the sun as rising, so we continue to believe our senses separate, our perceptions isolate, each as distinct from the others as we ourselves are from all that we perceive, all as clear as 20/20; and there at the edges, where the senses get fuzzy, the dogma begins...

DARKNESS NIGHT


Tomorrow night is No Electric Light Night for those of us in on it in these parts, when we will use only candles and lanterns and show ourselves and the kids what darkness is and means, how much a part of life it is and true, and how familiar it can be and not to fear, so much has been forgotten of where we were and whence we came and how--

Already it recalls to me one moonless night while we were living on an island off the coast of Spain, out on a point with the ocean at our front, with no electricity, not long after we'd moved there - with only one candle to cook by and eat by - there was a knock from the dark at the dark door, it was an elderly man without light who had come round the point from the sea and had walked the long dark path up to our candle to ask the way to the village over the mountain, and would go hence into the night and over the mountain without light and how would he see, I city-wondered.

Before long we too were walking over the mountain along stony paths even on moonless nights, seeing fine by the light of the stars and the ancient light-finding strength that had been in our eyes all along unasked for, and so never received until now. More than ever, we need to learn what darkness has to teach us that we do not know we already know, from long before our own lives. We should share this knowledge with our children, that the world may be the simpler place it is, both day and night--

DARKNESS NIGHT II

Darkness, as one might expect, is a lot darker out in the country; it's pretty much actual darkness out here where we are, except for a small light out on the island and a few sprinkled far across the Lake that go out one by one as night deepens.

Until a hundred years ago, city and country everywhere were pretty much the same at night; now the city has a 24-hour day. But though we all know this, even out in the country what has been lost to us with the loss of the dark tends to slip the mind when one has recourse to brightness at a switchflip. Easy light has made us lazier than we know, has let us drift from attentions we were born to give to the darkling edges of our lives, it has taken us farther from the forebears in our eyes and from 99.9% of our evolutionary history. Living in familiarity with darkness is in fact fully natural to us.

So it was like seeing an old friend last night when we came home to a dark house, went inside in the dark, lit some candles, a small kerosene lamp, and proceeded to prepare and eat dinner. Kaya was quiet, more thoughtful and studious of distances than her usual brightlight boistery night self. She was intrigued, instinctively contented with this new face of things, the space closing around her like a soft blanket. The food was different, the faces were different, the rooms and the house were different. We talked about darkness and history; we talked about how you don't have to be afraid in the dark, because in fact you can see in the dark: see?

We talked about how humanity had until just a few decades ago always been familiar with the dark and lived in close adherence to the cycle of dark and day, and how loss of the night must have deeply affected us humans, who have evolved through eons in bond with the natural cycle of dark and day; how light has changed us, how dark has changed us, and how the loss of one-half of that equation must have unbalanced us in ways we do not know.

We noted how things had a new beauty when shaded by the night, acquiring depths that light cannot contain, that only its absence can provide, and how without electricity conversation gained importance and intimacy. For her part, Kaya watched the candleflames flicker and smiled with an ancient, familiar delight.

Darkness was good.

(From two PLM posts of June 2003)

LONGEVITY

Of course it cannot be put into words, but one has to try, especially if one is Irish and there is the sky, just before sunset, taking this moment into the dark, the distance made of winter thunderheads rising higher than birds and man with wings can fly, the horizon lit inside by flashes of lightning, same family as the stars, now brightening between the columns of cloud...

Life is best lived deep and wide, not necessarily long - longevity is the least of it.

Warbler on the wire
asks what we're doing
to everything

THERE WILL BE SACRIFICES...

Yes, nature just isn't gonna take it any more; severe adjustments will have to be made. One unthinkable change is already under way...

Everyone from teens to senior citizens are saying no,
but mongers and meisters are trying to turn back the tides of change,
after a brief commercial...

AN HONOR

Pure Land Mountain included in a tastefully selected group
at Ageless North Shore...

THE FRONT

Slowly and relentlessly the front advances to capture the nation, edging ever closer toward abject populations that await on the tenderest of tenterhooks as silently the edge draws nearer, marching steadily forward across the terrain on the quietest of feet - nothing can stop it - not that anyone wants to, for any day now it will engulf us each and every one in its delicate effusion, washing over us in a tidal wave of implacable pinkness, a nationwide lava flow of tiny petals, a torrent of ever-so-softness frittering down over folks who can only sit vanquished on blankets on the grass in the parks beneath the unstoppable vanguard, eating their bento and drinking their sake even unto the end, dancing their delight to the continuous music inspired by the ruthless beauty of the sakurazensen (Cherry Blossom Front), which will soon conquer this entire nation, overcoming its grateful populace in the subtlest of pastels and the most passionate moments of florid camaraderie you ever saw, when everywhere the air will be floral with fluttering sighs, and tears will fall like pale pink petals at the passing of this brief beauty everyone embraces but none can hold on to, as the transient vanquisher moves on to its next new conquest about a year from now.

SEEDS

Seeds in their infinite nature are a vast topic, deeper than the oceans of a mind, especially at this time of year when thoughts are beginning to germinate about planting or starting gardens (now moreso than ever) and about appreciating the value of genuine (ergo, slow) food.

Genuine food is best when you grow it yourself, and thus to your own golden standards, the own-grown motives being health, flavor and freshness, as compared to the brassy standards of agribiz, which breeds for efficiency, ship3000milesability, bruise resistance, cosmetic longevity, shelf life. Nutrition and flavor are in the equation by default, the bottom line being profit. An agribiz CEO inquiring as to the worth of a cabbage does not have the health of you or your children in mind. As you put that seed into the ground and nurture it, you do.

I grew up in the city, never had a garden, never even had a lawn (the latter of which was and is ok by me). I did spend some time in the Hudson River countryside though, at my cousins' house, where my uncle had a big vegetable garden (sure wish he was still in this world), in which as a little kid I used to wander enjoying the wondrous sight of bright red globes of tomato deliciousness growing right out of the dirt, of carrots pushing golden down into the ground at my feet, only their shoulders showing, sweet strawberries right there and ready to eat; honeydew melons, and going and picking raspberries, in real life; this was an old familiar language to some ancient in the child I was, this was the way things in life truly were and should always be, beyond the confines of dead-tree education. And so was born my strong ambition to one day have a garden of my own. It's been a long and organic journey, encouraged by the steady advances of paraquat and its pals.

What got me started on this ramble was not only seeds and Spring, when the mind becomes a garden of its own; the catalyst was finding a mention of PureLandMountain.com on CNNGo, in an article about Blogging Japanese Farmers, which led me back to its source on Martin's blog Kurashi - News from Japan, where I am complimented with praise that is way over my head. Wow. Thank you, Martin.

JINCHOGE...

...the first notes of fragrance on those tiny lavender trumpets...

MENDING FENCE

Up on the ladder this morning mending fence, I couldn't help but hear, in the recesses of the idle mind that such labor kindly affords, the words of Robert Frost, who as a relative newbie couldn't quite grasp why fences were needed when there were no cows around, and when his neighbor had pine trees and he himself had apple trees, so as they went along mending the wall in his famous poem Frost kept bugging his neighbor about the need for the thing, but the taciturn fellow would only say that good fences make good neighbors. Which I suppose may well be true in Vermont, where things are simpler in their ways.

The "something there is that doesn't love a wall," as detailed in Frosts poem, comprised nothing more than frozen ground-swell and rabbit hunters; that's all he wrote. The creators of the fence are the real reason for the fence. Frost made no mention of monkeys, and for good reason: things are simpler in Vermont. Humans are the only animal problem in his equation, and humans at least know what fences are, so he and his neighbor worked together, each on a side, to rebuild the wall between them-- Frost a bit mischievously, as befits a poet.

Their shared fence was meant to keep their own kind either in or out, and that's the whole of it. Simple. You can tell as you read the poem over and over that Frost and his noncommittal neighbor have had no acquaintance with the reasons I have my fence, why my fence is the way it is and why I mend it alone, up here on an early Spring morning that looks like rain. The animal in my equation does not know what fences are, so we do not work together, each on a side. The monkeys do not offer to help keep themselves from my onions, as I do not offer to refrain from swinging in their trees. Unlike Frost, I know what I'm walling in and what I'm walling out.

In those regards I have the advantage over Frost and his neighbor, who view their fence, in a vague, untested way, as a multilithic, fundamentally existential structure: a de facto embodiment of intraspecial distrust. There's no such factor in my equation, which is short and crystal clear, with no unknowns. Up where I live, good fences of this type have nothing to do with neighbors.

To myself I say, as I go along mending: good fences make good monkeys.

THE SIZE OF HUNGER

And as to fast food, for my money there is no better fast food than the ancient but always fresh onigiri, which takes about ten seconds to make from the cooked rice that's always around in the Japanese household, and takes its shape from the hands that made it, usually those of a loving wife or grandma (self-made onigiri just don't taste as good).

Molded by wet salted hands around a center of pickled plum, a bit of salmon or scrambled egg, or just about anything (nothing is good, too), the whole then wrapped in a sheet of nori seaweed (nothing is good, too), the onigiri needs no further explanation before eating with wide-open delight.

The onigiri does not require any ketchup, mustard, 1000-island dressing or worcestershire, no slice of onion on top with a pickle and a bun on both sides; simplicity has its own flavor. Nor does it need a plastifoam box to keep it warm inside a bag inside another bag. Warm or cold-- it works just as well either way.

But if you do happen to grill your plain onigiri over, say, the small charcoal fire you're grilling your fish or chicken on, be sure to brush the toasting rice with a little soy sauce and turn it frequently so that it gets equally brown and crispy everywhere and becomes a yaki onigiri. Much delight will follow.

The neat thing is, the onigiri is always exactly the size of your hunger.